Intel P965 chipset examined with Gigabyte 965P-DQ6

Final Thoughts

Intel's Core 2 platform is extremely popular in terms of its early performance; those who want to stay on the top of the FPS game will want to ditch those AMD boxes and start to migrate to the Core 2 side of things. The only question is what platform to take - 975X board or P965?

While Intel does maintain the 975X is the enthusiast chipset, it not only lacks support for DDR2-800, which the P965 now supports but it also has the lesser ICH7R Southbridge. It is outperformed by the P965, its mainstream brother, in all of our tests and with a price tag on the chipset less than 975X, it's clear to see that the P965 is set to be the Core 2's best friend until nVidia's SLI rocket hits the shores.

It should already be clear from our comments, Gigabyte has done a fantastic job in terms of their first Intel P965 motherboard with all the latest features, great overclocking potential and simply great looks; we have absolutely no hesitations in recommending the 965P-DQ6 motherboard to potential Core 2 buyers - two thumbs up!

- Pros

Fast

DDR2-800 Support

ATI Crossfire support

Extremely high FSB overclocking

e.SATA

Onboard Digital Audio support

Upcoming Vista OS support

Future-proof with support for upcoming Quad Core processors

12 phase voltage system

A tone of extras

Best silent cooling system for onboard components

- Cons

Placement of IDE connector

Expensive but you get what you pay for!

Rating - 9.5 out of 10 and TweakTown's "MUST HAVE" Editor's Choice Award